Console Corner: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey review

There are three certainties in life (well probably a lot more than that to be fair but for the purposes of this intro there’s three) death, taxes and the next Assassin’s Creed game.

Best in class Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a thing of beauty

But who says that’s a bad thing, yes some of the middle order of the now 11-strong series grew a touch stale but my goodness have Ubisoft got a good thing going in the latest iteration Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

There is a clear effort to further explore and expand the role-playing element to Assassin’s and they have done just that but without compromising on quality.

Set in 431 BCE, you are thrown into the (fictional) Peloponnesian War and choose between controlling a mercenary for either the Delian League led by Athens or the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta.

What will strike you first when you start playing ACO is just how vast the open world you inhabit is.

Make no mistake Odyssey is the crowning achievement of the series so far, delivering on all fronts to take the mantle of Ubisoft’s best ever Assassin’s and one of the best games of its genre of all time.

Damien Lucas, gaming columnist

The graphics and visuals as usual are spectacular but ACO takes it to a completely different level and feels like the Assassin’s that this generation of console has been building towards for the last five years.

The open world is truly massive and offers huge longevity given how much there is to do, explore, discover and uncover.

As well as feeling like the pinnacle for the franchise, Ancient Greece also feels like the setting the series has always been building towards.

The story as ever is engrossing, beautifully-crafted and littered with choice and the twists and turns which we have become so accustomed to.

Best in class Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a thing of beauty

This is not just the same game repackaged in a different time and place, though, as has often been the criticism of Assassin’s in the past.

No ACO is so much more. Some pacing issues and the perennial problem of grind - which goes hand-in-hand with many open-world games of this scale - means this falls just short of as close to perfection as you can get.

But make no mistake Odyssey is the crowning achievement of the series so far, delivering on all fronts to take the mantle of Ubisoft’s best ever Assassin’s and one of the best games of its genre of all time.